Poultry meat in France: Anvol’s plan to regain 20 points on imports

Anvol, an interprofessional organization, has unveiled a strategy to cut imported poultry meat consumption in France by rearing 80 new chicken coops each year for five years, aiming to restore 20% of the market share currently held by imported poultry. With poultry meat consumption on the rise in France, concerns about the growing reliance on foreign poultry have intensified, especially with the sector's practice of rearing eight poultry species and using four farming methods. Anvol insists on the necessity of labeling to indicate the origin of poultry and opposes the proposed EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, warning that it could lead to French poultry being undercut by cheaper South American poultry that may not adhere to the same health and environmental standards. The organization also voices its concerns about potential new EU regulations on poultry transport and argues for the exclusion of the livestock sector from the Industrial Emissions Directive, citing existing regulations as some of the most stringent globally.

The interprofessional organization's roadmap is clear: it involves creating 80 chicken coops per year for 5 years to recover 20% of the volumes of imported poultry meat. While poultry meat is the only meat that is seeing its consumption increase (+3.5% in 2023, +12.7% in the first half of 2024), one in two chickens consumed in France is currently produced outside our borders. And the trend is rather accelerating: in 2020, 41% of chickens consumed in France came from other countries. In 2021, the proportion increased to 45% and then to 50.5% in 2022. What Anvol expects from France Anvol, which points out that the sector has the particularity of raising 8 different species of poultry (chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, ducks, geese, quails, pigeons, cockerels) according to 4 distinct farming methods (standards, Product Conformity Certification, Label Rouge and Organic), requires "precise, total and systematic identification of the origin of poultry. Labeling, already mandatory for raw ...